


Viscaria

by whatkindofnameisella



Series: Widojest Week 2020 [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Widojest Week 2020, Widojest Week 2020 day 1, born out of me perusing a flower meanings website and loosing my mind, fun fact: i wrote great chunks of this in my notes app, oh my god oh my god IT'S HERE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25091773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatkindofnameisella/pseuds/whatkindofnameisella
Summary: “These flowers, they, ah – they grew around my hometown, actually.”He looks back up to her at that, and – she feels her heartstrings twist violently in her chest. She swallows, mouth dry and this conversation suddenly seeming a very fragile thing. “Oh? Really?”“They are, erm.” He knits his brows together, bites his lips and looks down, laughs uselessly, and that sweet red blush is starting to climb up his cheeks. And then back up to her again. “They are a means of asking one to dance.”Viscaria - a small pale blue and/or pink flower meaning, "Will you dance with me?"
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Series: Widojest Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825060
Comments: 23
Kudos: 88
Collections: Widojest Week 2020





	Viscaria

**Author's Note:**

> AHHHH!! WIDOJEST WEEK IS HERE!!!! i have been looking forward to participating for so long! words cannot express how much being a part of this fandom over the past many months has meant to me, and specifically how much it has meant to me to have a reason to start writing again. I don't have something for every single prompt, but I'm excited to contribute what I can - and most of all, see all the amazing things everyone else creates this week :)))) here we go!
> 
> here is my fic for day one: dance.

This party is disappointing, if nothing else. Too many important people crammed into one space, talking to one another. Her friends too scattered throughout this garden. Not nearly enough people dancing. 

She catches sight of the top of a fiery head of hair, tied back and greasy from hands having run through it too many times. She smiles, and shifts her grip on the flower stems in her hands.

She weaves around the crowd, bumps shoulders with a few disgruntled politicians, skirts conversations she has been deemed too unimportant to hear, and reaches his backside – nearly pressed up against the food table, all alone. Predictably Caleb. There’s barely enough space, but she shimmies behind him, presses up onto her toes, and brings her mouth as close as she dares to his ear.

“Caleb.”

He jumps forward and turns around, hand clutched to his chest, breathless and petrified before – he sees her standing there, hands behind her back and smirking, and settles into a series of blinks – blotches of red working their way from his neck up onto his cheeks. 

It’s a lovely sight.

“Jester,” He breathes. “You scared me.”

She shrugs, biting her tongue in her mouth to keep from laughing, mischief and feigned innocence because she knows it delights him. “You’re easy to scare.”

He laughs once, tentatively, looking from the ground to her to the ground again. “Don’t I know it.” Eyes up to her again. “You look – “ He gestures aimlessly towards her. “Nice.”

Oh – her heart just missed a beat at that. She feels horribly shy when she smiles. “Well, I – thank you,” and she looks down and fiddles with the embroidery on the green skirt she got the other day, “New skirt and all. You know.”

“ _Ja_. It’s, ah – “ and he’s scratching the back of his neck before clasping his hands in front of him, looking at her so earnestly in the eyes, “Wonderful on you. It looks wonderful on you.”

They break eye contact and she tries to ignore her blush. He clears his throat, the type he does to fill silence.

“I have something for you,” she blurts, taking out the bouquet from behind her back and thrusting it in front of him, grinning in hopes of breaking the tension. It’s a humble thing – a small cluster of pale indigo petals she’d found growing on the edges of the party earlier. 

He reaches forward and bewilderedly – clumsily, their fingers bumping into each other where they meet at the stems – takes them from her grasp. “Thank… you…?” He peers up at her and then down to the flowers, which he picks through like he has no idea what to do with them. Not that she did, either – though this is much better than anything she could’ve imagined. Not that he has to know that. 

He looks back up to her again, utterly clueless. And, she can tell, utterly amused. The smallest smile is beginning to pull at his lips.

“Here,” She closes the distance between them and plucks one of the flowers from Caleb’s hands, very pointedly _not_ looking at his face which she can tell is frozen looking at her, very pointedly _only_ looking at the flower in her hand, and then the space behind his ear. “It’ll look nice in your hair."

“Oh – “ He stutters, then chuckles aimlessly, reaching up to where her hand is at the side of his head and pulling away quickly when he happens to touch her, “That’s – _ja_ , sure, okay. _Ja_.”

She finishes tucking the stem into his hair and pulls back, and he immediately bows his head, hand absentmindedly fiddling with the flower stem she just tucked behind his ear. He clears his throat, clasps both hands around the remaining flowers before looking up at her, furiously blushing, and – 

Oh. _Oh_. He’s – red cheeks and an amused smile behind the eyes and fine stubble and fiddling hands and blue eyes and blue flowers, he’s – 

Handsome. He’s _handsome_.

He raises his eyebrows, lifts his chin slightly. “How do I look?”

“I – Well. You.” _Fuck_. “I – “ She clears her throat, determined that the next time she opens her mouth she will not be so unreasonably caught off guard by how marvelously that flower brings out his eyes. “You look lovely,” she says, and smiles so he knows she means it. “You look – “ and she pauses, thinking of some better word, and upon settling on one deepening her grin, eloquently drawing it out, “Dashing.”

He sighs and settles into a small smile, _there it is_ , nervously flitting his gaze down and up again – before quickly clearing his throat and schooling his gaze into something closer to impassivity. She wishes he wouldn’t always do that. “You know – it’s kind of funny, really – “ He lets out a nervous laugh, gaze stuck on the flowers in his hand, “These flowers, they, ah – they grew around my hometown, actually.”

He looks back up to her at that, and – she feels her heartstrings twist violently in her chest. She swallows, mouth dry and this conversation suddenly seeming a very fragile thing. “Oh? Really?”

“They are, erm.” He knits his brows together, bites his lips and looks down, laughs uselessly, and that sweet red blush is starting to climb up his cheeks. And then back up to her again. “They are a means of asking one to dance.”

She blinks. “Oh.”

The sound of far off conversation fills the following silence.

He winces, looks down and scratches his neck, laughing nervously again, “Of course – of course you did not know, sorry, that was stupid of me to say – “

She smiles so wide it feels like her face might break. “Oh,” and she can’t stop a giggle from escaping her chest, “Caleb.” She leans forward, smirking. “All you had to do was ask.”

He stays frozen in shock for one moment before breaking, grimacing and smiling and fumbling with the flowers in his hands all at once, “Oh – Oh no – “

“Oh, yes,” She giggles, then grabs his hands and pulls him even more gracelessly than before through the crowd, bumping shoulders and ruffling feathers of countless conversations, a jumble of legs and arms and muffled laughter straining for the dance floor.

They reach it, eventually – a small clearing of grass near the edge of the party, more lively than the rest of it. Only a few forgotten flowers still absent mindedly clutched in Caleb’s hand. 

“Oh gods, Jester,” she looks over to find Caleb still marvelously blushing at her side, gazing out hopelessly at the moving crowd, “I have no idea what kind of dance this is.”

She smirks up at him, teasingly bumps his shoulder, “Won’t that make it more fun?”

“Oh, no – I don’t think that’s – “

“Common, common!” And she’s grasping at his hands again, pulling him out onto the dance floor amidst the few couples engaged in some slow-going Xhorhassian folk dance, fumbling to place one hand on his shoulder and another in his grasp. He blinks down at her helplessly, laughs a bit as she takes one of his hands and places it on her waist, palm so gentle when it finds purchase. He looks down and unfurls his other hand, still containing a few straggling flowers, then peers up at her with an eyebrow raised, humor to his reddened face. Her stomach balks.

“And what do I do with these?”

She shrugs, biting a smile and fighting the capricious feeling overtaking her chest. “I don’t know.”

He frowns up at her, and she laughs. “You _gave_ these to me, Lavorre, I – “ He sighs – then, with a poker face leagues better than her own, looks up and threads two of them behind her ear. His face is unfairly close, and she finds herself forgetting, for one suspended moment, how to breathe.

He pulls back and looks at her, blush betraying the confidence on his face as another couple dances around them. “Now we’re even, _ja_?”

She swallows, heart doing wild cartwheels around her chest. His eyes have not gotten any less blue. “Yeah, sure – “

A voice suddenly calls out from the group of musicians in a language she doesn’t understand, a couple cheers ring out from the gathered dancers in response. More expectant dancers begin to gather in the clearing of grass, more space is made by the surrounding crowd, and she and Caleb are pushed further into the gathering of couples – fumbling and apologizing, stepping on toes and tops of feet, walking head first into his chest, for all the gods’ sake – 

“Oh, gods – “

“No, it’s fine, don’t – “

He scrambles to find a respectable distance, looks at her with flustered panic clear on his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I – Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

She affixes him with her best _‘seriously?’_ look she can muster. “Caleb. Why would _I_ have any idea what’s – “

A fiddle begins in earnest over her shoulder – realization sparks. She grins just as an amused terror crosses his face. 

“Oh no, gods – “

“Oh yes, Caleb,” some sort of uncontrollable laughter is escaping from her chest, “This is going to be so good, this is – “

She barely has time to finish rambling before the whole crowd picks up around them to the fast tune of the band, stumbling with giggles, bumping into Caleb, until – his hand steadies around her waist, grips her own with more confidence, and begins to lead them in this foreign dance. It is unexpected, and it is ungraceful, but – 

He laughs more times than she can count, and when she spins under his arm and stumbles back into his grasp she ends up flush to his chest, the smell of soot and sweat in her nostrils and heart beating wildly as his hand holds her close at the waist, and when she pulls back again and slurs an apology among giggles and looks up at him he’s – happy, happy and carefree and smiling at her like he’s forgotten to care that she can see it. And her heart is aching in her chest, and she didn’t know it was possible to stumble so many times over your own feet and find such joy in it, and she wants to hold onto him forever, and – 

It’s over as quickly as it started, music winding down and her somehow caught up in his arms, being spun around and gasping with laughter – a kiss placed fervently, thoughtlessly, to the side of her head. He sets her down, clumsily because he is not strong, and he’s as red as a summer rose when he – looks at her, suddenly very close, too close, blue eyes deep indigo with affection, and she thinks she might kiss him, and he – clears his throat just as she does, as they both look down into the grass and clumsily untangle their arms from each other. A complex and reluctant unknotting.

She clears her throat again, chances a glance up as she gives a shaky curtsey low to the ground. Damn, her face is as hot as the nine hells. “Thank you for the dance, Mr. Widogast.”

He stares, flushed and bewildered for a moment – before he blinks and places a hand over his heart, inclining at the waist. An almost drunken, unbidden giggle bubbles up from her chest, hand placed over her mouth too late to smother it. “The pleasure was all mine, Frau Lavorre.”

His voice is thick with humor and something else she’s too scared to name. 

He stands up straight again, all pretense of joke vanished for this strange sense of – wonderment and suspended disbelief, as they look at each other. And her heart, still struggling to keep up with her lungs inside her chest, buzzes in her ribcage – _squeezes_ , sublimely – as she watches him fiddle with his hands, stuck on her as much as she’s stuck on the sight of him with that flower in his hair. 

“Well, I guess I should – “

“Yeah, no, of course – “

He unfreezes himself, body almost stuttering for a moment before he begins to walk off, mutters something about getting drinks for them both, about being back quickly, and she watches him go – grabs her shaking hands together and steps back from the dance floor, trying to get a hold of her lungs again. 

Her eyes catch and stick on the patch of blue flowers blossoming off to the side in the grass.


End file.
